Thursday, 31 December 2015

The Brandon Wheat
Kings will open a three-game Alberta road trip, and 2016, on Friday when they
visit the Edmonton Oil Kings (3:00 p.m. CST, 880 CKLQ).

The Wheat Kings
will continue to ice a short-staffed lineup, and could be missing up to seven
players Friday including defenceman Colton Waltz, who continues to sit at home
while he awaits a trade.

The absence of
Waltz and having fellow blueliner Ivan Provorov away at the World Junior Hockey
Championship has opened up plenty of ice-time on the Wheat Kings’ blueline.

Second-year
defenceman Mark Matsuba is one of those picking up the slack.

“Just trying to
stay positive, make use of all my minutes and be as consistent as possible,”
said Matsuba after Thursday’s practice in Red Deer, “Just contribute a little
more and show the coaches that they can trust me out on the ice.”

Matsuba has
played in seven consecutive games going into Brandon’s January 1st
contest, notching one assists while registering a +4 rating.

He’s been plus or
even in six of the seven contests.

“Playing with
different D pairings every game keeps you on edge a bit but it’s really good
experience,” added Matsuba.

The Wheat Kings’
injury list will likely go down by one Friday as rookie forward Stelio Mattheos
is expected to return after missing nine games with an upper body injury.

Ty Lewis (lower
body), Tanner Kaspick (upper body), Jayce Hawryluk (suspension) and John
Quenneville (Cdn Jr. Team) will join Provorov as other Brandon players out of
the lineup for this weekend.

The Western
Hockey League finalized Hawryluk’s suspension at five games on Thursday,
meaning the Florida Panthers’ draft pick won’t be eligible to return to Brandon’s
lineup until January 15th.

Chaff...Quenneville finished the four-game
round-robin with one goal and one point for Team Canada, with his goal the
winning marker in Canada’s 6-1 victory over Denmark on December 28th…Provorov
had four assists in four games in the round-robin portion of the tournament,
helping Russia to an undefeated record…Brandon F Tyler Coulter will take a
ten-game point streak (6 G, 5 A) and a four-game goal streak into Friday’s
contest.The point streak is tied for
the third longest in the WHL this season…the Wheat Kings will have a pair of
affiliate players in their lineup Friday in 2015 first round Bantam Draft pick
Caiden Daley and 19-year old defenceman Dominic Thom.

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About Me

I have been the voice of the Brandon Wheat Kings and Sports Director at CKLQ Radio in Brandon since 1993.
The purpose of my blog is to provide you with up-to-date Wheat Kings' news and items.
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